A Picture into the Heavyweight Division to Start 2016: Wilder Vs. Szpilka

The heavyweight division has gotten a lot more interesting recently. With Fury’s victory over Klitschko, Luis Ortiz recent victory and the rise of Deontay Wilder we are beginning to see a new era of heavyweights.

On January 16th, on Showtime Championship Boxing, Deontay Wilder, 35-0 (34 KOs) looks to keep his undefeated streak going when he defends the WBC title against Artur Szpilka, 20-1 (15 KOs). Szpilka is a decent matchup, and is much better than most of Wilder’s opposition, although it’s a fight that should have happened earlier in Wilder’s career.

Since defeating Bermane Stiverne, Wilder has taken a step backwards: fighting Eric Molina and Johann Duhaupas. In these fights, Wilder has taken a different approach, boxing more and going 12, 9 and 11 rounds respectively. Wilder’s boxing has improved but he isn’t looking as devastating as he once did. Meanwhile Szpilka is on a 4 fight win streak following his sole defeat to Bryant Jennings.

Artur Szpilka is a step up compared to Wilder’s past two matchups and he is a step in the right direction so it’ll be interesting to see how this fight goes. Will Wilder blast him out of there quickly or will he continue to show his improved boxing skills? Even though the matchup is an intriguing one, there are other fights that the boxing world is more interested in.

With Fury’s upset defeat over Wladamir Klitschko; at the moment, the two men in the division are Fury and Wilder. Boxing fans have been clamoring for a fight between the two for quite some time. But with Klitschko likely electing to use his rematch clause against Fury, we will have to wait. If Fury is successful in the rematch, hopefully 2016 can bring on the fight for heavyweight supremacy between Wilder and Fury. Who will reign supreme in the heavyweight division? Will Klitschko regain his throne? Will it be Wilder or Fury? Or will Luis Ortiz come knocking on the door? Tune in on January 16th for the start of the story.